The nature of reading has changed over the course of time. As more people learned to read and write, the rules became firmer, that is, readers became bound to the forms of the printed text so that rules of the written language became a necessity. Fifty years ago, adults in Denmark who had difficulty in reading could manage tolerably well, though only at a few places within the industrial society. Twenty-five years ago, it was rare for Danes not to be fairly good readers, and today the Dane who cannot read is an invalid while the one who cannot write faces even more difficulties. Every single change in industry increases the requirements for knowledge, and every single change increases the demands for reading and writing. Although the reading of a runic stone and of a computer display unit share some common features, each requires a different power of abstraction, development of concepts, attitude, level of complexity, and previous knowledge. In communication, reading must not be allowed to disappear; educators must teach students that reading is also content and that, among other things, reading is important for the continuation of cultural heritage and for the enlargement of knowledge. We cannot define the possibilites that will be contained in "reading" in just one or two decades from now, but we can try to extrapolate some of what we can now see in the light of change. (HOD)